Explore "Gathered In" by Catherine Helen Spence on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Both young men were received at Wilta cordially. Jim was never quite at his ease in the company of those whom he was obliged to acknowledge as his betters, but the good-breeding of his host did much to prevent his appearing very awkward. In the business matter of the delivery of the sheep, which Kenneth had to conclude for his uncle, Jim had a good deal to say, but he left his cousin to check the numbers, and to commit them into the care of the Tingalpa men who had come up for them, while he took a game at billiards with Mr. Ellerton, and was deeply impressed with his magnificent play.
Instead, however, of taking a fancy to Miss Gray, he neither thought her handsome nor agreeable. She was too sharp altogether for him, and her eager talk about David Henderson and his scheme met with no other response than that the governor was ready to put down pound for pound with Mr. Gray, which his father had commissioned Jim himself to do; leaving to Kenneth to explain the real sympathy which Mr. Oswald felt in the object.